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2009 goals
I usually think about the upcoming year around my birthday as opposed to New Year’s Day. I think because on the 1st I’m usually still winding down from the holidays.I don’t call them resolutions because they’re usually things I want to try out; I’m not going to resolve to eat durian forever if I try it and I hate it. (Not that I’d ever eat durian *shudder*).
Here is my list of things I want to do this year:
- Complete the couch to 5k running program
- Complete The Artist’s Way
- Do one hundred push ups
- Do two hundred sit curl ups
- Get my class 6 learner’s license
- Complete a motorcycle rider’s course
- Get my unrestricted class 6 license
- Buy a motorcycle & gear
- Figure out a better work/commute/life balance
- Eat healthier
- Write more
- Get my own website
- Put 10% of my gross income into an RRSP
- Save 5-10% of my gross income in a high interest savings account
- Get my Celtic star tattoo fixed
- Get at least one more tattoo
- Paint the inside of the house
- Fix the front of the house
- Fix the backyard
If 50 is the new 30, I’m 10 today!
It’s been a pretty good day. Paul took me out for day one of Toasterpalooza this afternoon, going “every where Laurie wants to go”. I shopped for books and incense at Banyan Books & Sound. We went to the Naam for lunch and then hit up Country Beads (got some beautiful labradorite, amythyst, turquoise, and citrine beads), Granville Island, and Voltage. I love Voltage! This was my first trip out there. I got a Tokidoki Moofia blind box (I got Japanese Milk) and a Tokidoki “Latte” t-shirt. The whole friggin’ window display was Tokidoki!
I guess this is more evidence that I turned 10, not 30.
Tomorrow we’re going to the Vancouver motorcycle show and out for dinner. Monday night we’re going out for dinner with Graeme, Laura and Traviss.
Paul’s gift to me is motorcycle lessons. We’re taking our class 6 license lessons this year for sure, for real, absolutely, no excuses: we’re doing it.
So far, being 30 is pretty good. My twenties are a little tough at times, but I’m looking forward to good times ahead in the next, well…ever!
Cranky
Our commute just got two hours longer.
If you’re local, you already know about the fire that destroyed the approach to the south-side of the Patullo bridge over the weekend. Apparently it’s going to take 4 – 6 weeks to repair. Over 80,000 vehicles travel over the Patullo; now they’re all having to re-route. One of the alternative routes is the way we commute in to work. What normally takes us 45 minutes is taking an hour and a half to two hours (each way). Traffic is just crawling along.
Not only is it a pain/aggravating/frustrating (take your pick!) to have my day made longer, I’m worried about the dogs. That’s a lot longer than they’re used to waiting for going outside. A couple of years ago it took us four hours to get home because of snow and ice on the highway, and poor Bender (he was just a puppy) peed all over the kitchen. Poor little guy, he couldn’t help it.
I think they can hold it; but it will probably be uncomfortable for them.
Grumpy
Maybe I’m not cut out for this whole social media thing. Maybe I just don’t get it. I have people add me on Twitter once in awhile because (I think) we share an interest, or if I’m being really ambitious, that person though my tweet was funny or insightful. And yeah, I get the Twitter spammers, who seem to fall into two camps:
1. People who want to buff up their following/followers list
2. People who want to market or sell something
It’s a lot more of number 2. Since I’ve mentioned my iBook, I have people whose sole purpose on Twitter seems to be jailbreaking iPhones trying to be my Twitter followers. I think I know what jailbreaking an iPhone is, but since I have no desire to own one, or take a second mortgage out for the data plan, it’s kind of futile.
The thing I don’t get is the people who tweet constantly. They ask questions, then spend the next 10-15 minutes posting all the answers their followers send them. It’s great when I’m at work and working on something with a Firefox page open, and TwitterFox floods the screen with a bunch of nonsense.
Argh.
Anyways, yes: I’ve removed the offending Twitter-ers from my timeline.
The things Paul says:
Paul has a post-viral bacterial infection, so he coughs all the time. He was prescribed a cough syrup with codeine. He ended up taking an extra dose last night, which facilitated this conversation this morning:
Paul: “Argh, my liver hurts!”
Me: “It’s painful on your right side?”
Paul: “No Laurie, your liver is on your left side.”
Me: “Uh, no: it’s on the right.” (Thinking, duh, I’ve seen my liver on ultrasound, I know where it is!)
Paul: “No, it’s on your left…right here!” (Rubs right side of his abdomen.)
Me: “Yeah right there: on your right side!”
Paul: “Whatever, it hurts!”
Paul wants me to point out that he was wacked out on codeine during this conversation, and when you’re looking at someone, the liver in on your left.
I’m used to asking people, “which paw hurts, the left or the right?…No, that’s his right paw…Yes, I know it’s on your left, but it’s his sore paw, not yours!”
This is why “being connected” sucks
Because of Facebook, I know that our clinic’s xray machine isn’t working. It’s not the developer/processor, it’s the actual machine. It seems to not be exposing the cassettes. Greeeeat. I couldn’t rein in my curiosity, and I logged in to work to see that tomorrow is fully booked (what the hell!?) and we have an orthopedic surgery scheduled. Excellent. You never have to take an xray after doing surgery on a bone, am I rite?
I also went back and saw that the last two weeks looked surprisingly busy. It will never cease to amaze me what people decide MUST BE SEEN on Christmas and/or New Year’s Eve.
So yeah, I am totally looking forward to going back to work…
…as long as we can get out of the driveway. It’s been snowing again, and the roads are terrible. Likely because everyone belived the weather forecast saying that today was going to have a high of +6 with rain. We went out for a belated anniversary dinner and had to dig out the driveway when we got back home.
But if I don’t go in I’ll just be sitting at home feeling incredibly guilty. Sigh.
Eight!
Sometime in the next 24 hours will be our eighth anniversary together. I say “sometime” because (as you may know) I (we) was (were) a little inebriated. To be honest, I was the drunkest, but hey: we were at a New Year’s party! We were competing to see who could drink the most! We had also spent the previous night drunk at my place, lighting things on fire in the kitchen sink. Good times. Although I was feeling pretty rough when I finally got home. Drinking for two days straight will do that.
I often hear stories of how people knew when they first met their spouse that he or she was “the one”. I can’t say that was necessarily true for Paul and me. The first thing he ever said to me was “who is she, and why is she in my house?” My first memory of Paul is him saying that while jamming a toque over his head.
Okay, so he had just woken up after working for an ungodly amount of hours at Stockhouse, and found a strange girl in his house. I’d have been kind of pissed off, too.
It didn’t take long for us to become inseparable, heh. About two weeks, to be exact.
I’m not one to write a bunch of mushy stuff, but I am so happy that Paul is my husband/partner/buddy/love.
I love you!
(I’m still not convinced that there really wasn’t a kangaroo. Maybe Cupid is a kangaroo?)
A semi-productive day
We headed out to the North Vancouver MEC to pick up the last of my Christmas presents (in “mousse”). We met up with Dale for brunch which was kind of a spur-of-the-moment-type-thing (as much as they can be when we live across the GVRD from each other!) Dale also provided us with this truism:
“You drive a big truck, which makes me suspect you’re an asshole. The you park it in a “small car only” spot and confirm it.”
- Dale, on parking like an asshole.
I should open up my own Etsy shop and sell “asshole confirmed” stickers. I guess I’ll have to license the quote from Dale, first.
Then Paul and I went to Metrotown, and reminded ourselves of why we hate shopping there (hint: parking lot hell, and masses of zombified mall people). I wanted to check out American Apparel for a hoodie, but we walked in and did an about-face and walked out. It was such an uncomfortable experience being in there. According to Paul: “any store selling Hypercolour shirts in 2008 is not a store I want to be in”. I felt like I was in a commercial for Koodo Mobile, between the garish colours and the lamé leggings and gym bags.
The 1980s called and said that you can keep anything you want, even the legwarmers.
Oh god, what if acid-wash jeans come back in style?
In the end, Chapters did not have the book in stock that its website promised me, but I did end up with a hoodie, albeit from Old Navy, so we didn’t really need to venture in to crazytown.
Then we spent over $135 at the liquor store. It’s weird buying sparkling wine, liqueurs, and microbrewery beer when the only other customer is a scruffy guy buying Wildcat beer.
(Side note: they never used to sell three different kinds of Wildcat. It only used to be Wildcat Strong: that was the whole point. If you’re gonna drink shitty beer, you might as well drink strong shitty beer so you can drink less of it with the same result. Or drink less of it before the taste doesn’t matter. Yes, I’ve had it – it’s just as horrible as you would imagine. Even as a teenager drinking in a park I couldn’t stomach it. I’m pretty sure that’s a cougar on the box. If you’re going to drink Wildcat, why bother with the light? And is there really such a difference between Strong and Dry?)
Free Wii
I was going to get Paul a Wii for our wedding anniversary, which was November 30th. Yay for one year of marriage!
Anyways.
Two weeks before our anniversary he announced at breakfast (apropos of nothing, mind you) that he had no interest in a Wii. I clarified, in a panic, because he had been talking about getting one a few times that month. If I didn’t get him a Wii I’d have to get him the things I had planned on getting him for Christmas…and you have no idea how difficult it is to shop for Paul. This is the first year ever that I knew exactly what I was getting him well in advance.
Nope, he did not want a Wii. Damnit.
The week before our anniversary he went to a symposium on contact centres and technology and came home with a door prize. “Look what I won!” he exclaimed as he bounded in the front door: a goddamn Wii!
And to top it off, he suspects that it was rigged!
He was at a lecture/talk/presentation by a vendor, and Paul raised some concerns about the way a large installation had been handled where he works. To be honest the whole things did go to hell in a handbasket, and if the vendor wants to work with other companies like Paul’s they need to know. I think Paul was pretty blunt though.
So after Paul’s feedback, they go right to draw for the door prize. “…and the winner is Paul, from Suckess Corp! Yaaaay!”
Hmm.
“But I thought you said you didn’t want a Wii,” I protested, as he danced around the room clutching it. Ah, but this was a Wii that he won, nay: earned. And now that he had it, it became the greatest thing ever.
So that’s how we ended up we ended up with a Wii. Which was free.
